SKFU teases us with what could be a native Playstation Vita hack

Just recently developer SKFU has made progress on what could be a native hack of the Vita, giving us our first visual glimpse!

It seems hacking progress is regularly attempted outside of the PSPemu (which is the typical eCFW and VHBL) by SKFU. Awhile back you may remember our reporting on news that the developer SKFU was able to get a developer PsVita and had slowly started to peal back the veil of his own Vita exploit by releasing common app paths in the Vitas filesystem.

Now, SKFU has revealed a picture of what could be a native Vita exploit, confirming that he has made progress with that Dev unit. SKFU posted the picture below and playfully teasing us by saying “VHBL is not the only thing working on 2.02 :-P”

It seems that if this photo is correct, SKFU has been able to do a very in depth analysis (something we saw with his reveal of the Vitas common app eboot paths) of the Vita and has made some progress in his investigations. What’s shown in the picture is a custom icon and naming of said application.

But don’t get too excited yet. Showing icons of homebrews in the XMB has always been possible on the PSP, it didn’t mean the PSP would accept to run them if they weren’t signed. The PS Vita however is known to prevent you from even copying homebrews to the memory stick, so SKFU has at least figured out how to do that… or is this just a feature of the dev units?

This could be a false lead, but as of now this is the only known one outside the pspemu, besides Yifanlu’s UVL. This is likely to be a huge and developing story so stay tuned for more information, we’ll try to reach out to SKFU for more details on this.

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Jd8531

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117 Responses

Already stated to the zet on twitter that this is either an app renaming facility or fake……i hope im wrong and its the start of a native exploit……ill gladly perform a forfeit of your choice if im wrong lol

I would like to see one if u got one?? You have claimed the name to fame but have yet to provide any backing other than scrutiny. I would like to know how to fake it since that is all your post describe.

I remember you trancehead, I retired my old username a long time ago but was quite a big poster over at MC (no, I’m not Xenofag xD ), PM here if you want link to the MC archive, my forum username is same as here 😉

I’m new here but it simply seem like he is only using a back ground with a picture of a icon in the middle of it which is easy to fake. Unless I see a video of this with the lil icon jumping around I’m not buying it. Also when I say new here I meant first post IV always watched

It definitely looks like some huge progress, but it’s hard to hope at this point. If I’m wrong and this is a way to play full speed arcade emulation, I’ll jump for joy, but it sounds way too big to be true.

Why do you idiots keep making articles after article with your so called exploit videos? Seriously what’s the REAL reason you keep delaying? This is becoming boring and annoying. It’s either you release it or you don’t. Don’t keep giving us *** and don’t even make any more excuses. For all you dumbasses who keep applauding for the Devs for making something that not here need to grow a brain too.

You needed to also explain in your comment that this is a different exploit, by a different person. It’s as if wololo posted someone else’s 3DS exploit and American Horror Story responded “Stop making exploit videos and release! You must have an ulterior motive!”

I don’t personally think this pic is any proof of progress, and I certainly am not fond of exploit videos when the idea is “I’ll never release this but I want to show off,” but anyone (like AHS) who is pretending that these exploit videos are wololo’s & are serving to delay eCFW releases is mistaken.

The developer unit is great stuff, but black plastic triggers isn’t good idea – cosmetic thing sort of… But none of HDMI output on regular unit is shame for $ONY – the same thing we have on tablet like Nexus 7 – developer unit also have this “forbidden” for simple gamers and owners stuff. None of HDMI out in this times of console/tablet gameing is another stupid idea that some of companies do – for what? Only for money… Like Apple overpriced hardware that also is “old” on the begining of life of product. So now i think our beloved $ony will probably release refreshed unit with magic HDMI output for only 400$. Stupid but so what? This would be good if they include on board LTE modem – for real onlne games, not only share msgs and upload trophies or sth. But I am asking when they will drop the sick prices of games set on that level and also crazy prices for their magic flash cards… Good way for community is create alternative for this cards even by external sth like memory card reader constructed like old dual sim adapters for gsm phones has. I wish to all of you and community happy new year

hmmm? I have to wonder if this is “real” progress on the vita side, as i also have yet to see skfu contribute to the scene. Not to mention the selling or tried selling of that dev unit. Why wouldnt the pic be on that dev unit unless he sold it. I still say if he got what he wanted out of it he should have given the unit to wololo who then in turn could get it to the actual devs on the scene, like team pro. just my 2 cents.

If it was an icon on a dev unit it would prove even less. “Look, I have my own changed icon. On a dev unit!!1″

Dev units are meant to, you know, develop stuff on

Still, I see no reason not to show the whole thing in action (the CFW he claims to have working). It’s not like Sony can magically see what his exploit’s code does just be seeing it run on a video.

My take on this is that there may be some (perceived) partial progress, but major pieces are still missing and he thinks he can solve them. As other have noted, this is NOT the same thing as that it will actually happen. He may or may not be in good faith, but if wanting to be believed proof is needed (and why make any statement at all if not wanting to be believed…)

(As for the fs paths etc that was “revealed” back in november: Stuff like that is probably in the dev kit documentation. At the very least, VERY easily found out when you have access to debuggers etc. You don’t have to be a hacker to use a dev kit. That’s why they exist.)

SKFU, prove me wrong and showcase your cfw boot from a clearly visible power cycle into whatever state it may be on a normal PSV unit, in a video. No weird “sorry for the bad quality, I don’t have a real camera” BS or weird excuses about having to move the unit off screen for “various reasons”.

Then I’ll start listening to what you have to say Until then, sorry, too many things that don’t make sense here.

But I agree with everyone else, a still photo is essentially no proof at all. And honestly a text edit of a PSVita icon, while interesting, would be hardly a big accomplishment without some other progress to go along with it.

I mean, sure, I’d like to change the text of an eCFW game to indicate that it is the exploit, but that would hardly be a big accomplishment. Surely Sony has less reason to put large security on Title Text, since there is no exploit available through changing such text to make that ability dangerous. It’s less interesting than most other possible LiveArea changes, unless there is actual proof of an exploit to go along with it.

Noone considered it could be a really good photoshop job? If what is said about SKFU is true it could easily be true. I’ve seen photoshop fails but I’ve also seen some damn impressive things done with it (an ex of mine was an art student)

Make screendump of “XMB”, move to PC, make whatever changes you want, put picture back on PSV, open in photo viewer on PSV and show in full screen. Snap picture with camera and post on teh internets. 3 minutes tops.

If you want to fake something there are a million ways to do it. It’s also fairly easy to show something in a way that removes any doubt. This static image doesn’t even try to remove any doubt.

It’s not hard at all to fake this, it would take me minute to render a wallpaper with the right deme sins and a fake icon with some text under it then upload it onto the vita and go to photos and display it. Then simply taking a photo. Yes a video of the icon in wiggle mode(move icons) would be nice and enough to verify. But this doesn’t raise my eyebrow even the slightest. And even still if he found the app paths and change the ico n the app name that still isn’t hard nor impressive, it’s one of the first things I would do if I had a dev console. Honestly. Nothing impressive has came out of this infant scene. Oh lawl lawl lawl we can run things in the psp emu big deal, that’s useless, at most we can run isos? Come on. I bought my vita hoping there was a native exploit by now. Honestly someone probably already got into the system. Someone we don’t know about and that has real skills. Other than writing an app that runs in an ancient environment we’ve mastered years ago (psp emu). Sigh..

I hope a proper Vita hack doesn’t come out for another year or 2. I think the Vita doesn’t have enough Vita games yet to have a hack for it and if one came out for it now it would probably kill the Vita completely given devs are already a little scared to make games for it now.

After some thought and mild analysis I think it just might be a hex edited param.sfo as mentioned by SS. Metal Gear Solid HD works out to 19 characters (spaces count as characters) His “title” is 17 characters. Add a space before or after, or add 2 spaces before (this one seems more likely as it looks like the first line is offset) and it works out to 19 characters. Just some more food for thought…

I would rather get updates on the progress of said exploits rather than ‘Look at what I can do that you can’t!’ updates. Not asking for devs to release their unfinished work or their finished work prematurally, but real information…

Oh and if you do make a video showcasing this progress, make sure we can see you turning the unit on and booting up, because it would be a simple matter of just faking something, and then playing the video file back on the system in full screen mode :).

As I said, I will wait till I see some real proof of progress before I will start getting excited!

I like to take peoples word for it… and im def not going to bash someone who is trying to contribute to the scene, ive been observing the vita scene since i got my vita a few months ago, i dident really say muc as i was deep into the ps3 scene still and wasent very interested in the vita scene yet, but since then i see a whole lot of people hating and only a small amount of people supporting, this is why these developers come and go like buses! GOOD JOB SKFU, KEEP UP THE GOOD WOKR!!!